News Article: Mrazek or UFA

[FlashyG]

Some other ones.

Vancouver - Luongo and Schneider
St. Louis - Halak and Elliott
Washington - Varlamov and Neuvirth
Los Angeles(?) - Quick and Bernier

But all those teams do have something in common. They were all damn good. It's just one of the goaltenders in the one-two punch usually plays their way out of town by playing great or poorly. So they normally don't last.

Quick and Bernier don't really belong on that list...they only split one season and it was LA's weakest season in their past several.

Really the only successful tandem of those you listed was Halak and Elliott and even they were only successful in the regular season.

The other 2 were circuses that resulted in one or both of the goalies being sent out of town.

 

[PelagicJoe]

Gustavsson could make saves that Howard couldn't, but Howard would make the saves that Gustavsson wouldn't.

Mrazek CAN do both.

I agree, it's only a matter of time.

Quoted for truth. I've pretty much lost faith in Howard over the past three years. It is time for some new blood, or at the very least, it is time for Jimmy to have a fire lit under his butt.

 

[YostisHome]

If Mrazek isn't going to get at least 20-25 starts its pointless bringing him up full time.

 

[Frk It]

Quick and Bernier don't really belong on that list...they only split one season and it was LA's weakest season in their past several.

Really the only successful tandem of those you listed was Halak and Elliott and even they were only successful in the regular season.

The other 2 were circuses that resulted in one or both of the goalies being sent out of town.

Osgood and Hasek in 07/08???

 

[Retire91]

If Mrazek isn't going to get at least 20-25 starts its pointless bringing him up full time.

I can't see a backup getting any less

in terms of where he is in his development 20-25 NHL starts plus NHL practices > 1000 more AHL games

 

[Bench]

There has been more success with that format in the AHL where games 3 nights in a row is common, but I can't remember any team really having success in the NHL going with 2 starters.

The Leafs this season is a good example of what usually happens when you try to split time between 2 goalies.

The the big knock to Tim Thomas during his Vezina years was that he didn't play enough games.

He only played over 60 games once in his entire career. His 2009 Vezina was 54 games. 2011 was 57. That's 28 and 25 games respectively for the backup which is playing 33% of your games. Howard would play over 60 games every year if not for injuries. He played 63 his first two years as starter. He played 42 of 48 last year. That was pretty insane.

I'd recon that's the sweet spot is 33% for your backup unless you have a prime Brodeur, Lundqvist or something. You could even push it to 40% (32 games), at that point, you're mighty close to a tandem.

I don't think you'll see many successful 50-50 splits, but the 70-30 or 60-40 should be explored. Jimmy likes to be an 80-20 guy, though.

 

[kdfsjljklgjfg]

I'm ready for Mrazek. Don't get me wrong, I think Gustavsson was a great backup for us. Great cap hit, prone to having huge games, and his bad games weren't significantly worse than a lot of backups would give teams.

But Mrazek is ready to come up full-time. Second-team all-star in his rookie AHL season, and even better this season, a sub-2 GAA in 9 games in the bigs. It really says a lot that goalies take so long to develop, and the brass felt good about bringing him up for so many games at the age of 22 when we have a reputation for keeping players down for so long.

He's ready for the NHL, and I'm ready to see him give Howard a good push.